The Three Laws of Performance by Dave Logan

Rewriting the Future of Your Organization and Your Life

THE THREE LAWS OF PERFORMANCE

(Steve Zaffron 外/Jossey-Bass/February 2005/256 pages /$27.95)

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THE THREE LAWS OF PERFORMANCE

Rewriting the Future of Your Organization and Your Life

MAIN IDEA

In any organization – and in your own personal life and career – there is a “default future” which you just know in your bones will happen. If you can change and some how enhance that default future, different and hopefully better things will happen. The three laws of performance relate to how you can shape and reshape that default future. The three laws are:

The three laws of performance allow you to immediately rewrite your own future and that of your organization. Change the way you speak and think about the future and you can then work towards achieving much more.

“We’re not talking about motivational speeches or slogans that people repeat. We’re talking about rewriting what people know will happen. Rewrite this future, and people’s actions naturally shift: from disengaged to proactive, from resigned to inspired, from frustrated to innovative. If we could rewrite the future across a critical mass of people, we could transform a tired company into an innovator, a burned-out culture into one of inspiration, a command-and-control structure into a system in which everyone pulls for each other’s success. This kind of transformation creates a wave of momentum: investors want in, companies want to partner with us, potential employees want to join our ranks. Rewrite the future, and old problems disappear.”

– Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan

About of Author

STEVE ZAFFRON is CEO of Vanto Group, an organizational performance consulting firm. Mr. Zaffron, a graduate of the University of Chicago and Cornell University, has consulted with more than three hundred organizations in twenty countries and has personally led more than a hundred thousand people worldwide as they have worked through organizational transformations. He is also a senior executive and board member of Landmark Education.

DAVE LOGAN is a faculty member at the University of Southern California’s school of business. He teaches management and organization in the MBA program. Dr. Logan also served as associate dean for executive education at USC. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California and is also cofounder and senior partner of CultureSync, a management consulting firm specializing in cultural change and strategy. Dr. Logan is the author or coauthor of three books including Tribal Leadership.

The Web site for this book is at www.threelaws.com.

Why do you do what you do? There are plenty of theories and books about human behavior but the simple fact is whenever you do something, it is because it makes perfect sense to you. You always and consistently respond to the realities of the situation as you perceive it. Your perception will incorporate both your view of the past and your predictions about the future. All of us do things in light of how a situation occurs to us.

The First Law of Performance states there is always a perfect correlation between your actions and how the situation occurs to you.

This is why it’s sometimes difficult to understand another person’s motivations for what they do. Until you actually go into the world of the other person and look at how everything seems in their view of the world, their actions may appear to be irrational. Once you understand how things are occurring to the other person, more than likely you will then understand the reason for their actions.

Note also how a situation occurs to us is a combination of two different factors:

■ Your view of the immediate past – which explains why things are the way they are.

■ Your anticipation of the near future – where exactly all of your current actions are heading.

Most change initiatives fail within companies and other organizations because people perceive the problems faced to be beyond their direct control. Therefore, change initiatives end up reinforcing the status quo rather than achieving something worthwhile. This leads to a cycle that goes something like this:

The principle at work here is: “Whatever you resist, persists”. As you try and fight your corporate challenges head on, you often end up strengthening the problem’s grip on your organization. The way to move forward is to take note of what is currently holding you in place which is your perceptions of how the situation occurs to you. Change that perception and you can address all your problems.

“The First Law rejects the commonsense view of actions – that people do what they do in a situation because of a common understanding of the facts. Given the different positions that well-informed, intelligent people often take on a situation, there is a significant difference between the objective facts of the matter and the way those facts occur to each of us.”

– Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan

“We are not saying that there isn’t a ‘real world’. We are merely pointing out that our actions relate to how the world occurs to us, not to the way it actually is.”

– Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan

“See the reality illusion at work, in you and people around you. Almost without exception, people don’t notice that all they are aware of is how situations occur to them. They talk, and act, as if they see things as they really are. Find people whose actions make no sense to you. Ask them questions, mostly open-ended, that provide insight into how those situations are occurring to them. Keep going until you can see how their actions perfectly fit how the situation occurs to them. (You’ll often find that this process alone goes a long way toward developing your trust and cooperation).”

– Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan

“The greatest advances in history have come from applying newly discovered laws. When the Three Laws are applied, performance transforms to a level far beyond what most people think is possible. It doesn’t happen bit by bit, but all at once, as individuals and organizations rewrite their future.”

The language which gets used to describe a business challenge can have a profound impact on whether or not you end up making changes for the better. Often, disincentives to performance gains exist more in what is unsaid and assumed rather than in what is said explicitly and openly within the organization. To move forward you usually need to clean out all the background clutter in order to make room for better language to start being used on a consistent basis.

Language is a very complex human phenomena. It is the force which defines what it is to be human. Language gives us a past and a bright future. It is the vehicle which allows us to dream, to set goals and to make plans for the future. Language is the means by which the future gets written so it stands to reason if you want to attain a different future, then you need to make changes in the language you use.

– Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan

Note language is not merely what gets said. It also includes:

• All spoken or written communications.

• Your body language, especially facial expressions.

• The tone of voice you use.

• Pictures, drawings and other symbols.

• The music you listen to.

• How you dress and what that says about you.

If you look hard enough, you may be able to find what can be termed “a racket” –something that is a convenient front for some more deep seated problems bubbling in the background. Rackets generally have four distinct elements, two of which are openly expressed and two of which are less verbalized:

The term “racket” arises from the Prohibition Era in the United States. A number of businesses were established as fronts for illegal bars. Often these were restaurants which would appear to be doing business legally but in reality they existed only as meeting places for the back-room consumption of alcohol.

These restaurants were rackets in that they existed only to put a nice public face on what was actually going on in private. So too in many organizations, there are complaints which are openly talked about but some times these complaints are cover stories for what is really holding you back from making changes for the better. In this way, a kind of racket exists.

If you can label something a racket, you’ll have more power over the situation rather than being held hostage by the common language in use. You can identify what’s holding you back and do something about it rather than letting the issue bubble away in the background. You can then change how the situation occurs to other people by altering the language which gets used to describe it.

To tap into the power of the Second Law of Performance:

■ Start by examining all persistent complaints. Keeping in mind these complaints are interpretations of the facts, see which of the four elements of rackets are at work here. More than likely, you’ll find all four elements are involved in some way.

■ Probe into the situation by writing down:

• What you need to say to others.

• What you need to forgive others for.

• What you need to be forgiven for yourself.

• What you need to take responsibility for.

• What you need to give up to make things better.

■ Communicate what you’ve discovered to others in your work and in your life.

Unsaid and unaware

Language can be used in two different ways:

■ It can be descriptive – describing what happened in the past, what the issues were and so forth. Descriptive language is excellent for looking backwards, spotting trends and analyzing what happened.

■ It can be generative or future-based – to create a new and attractive future, to craft vision and to eliminate the mental blinders that currently exist.

People commonly have what is called a “default future” in place. The concept of a default future is easy to visualize:

In practical terms, the default future is an extrapolation of what happened in the past, told using only descriptive language. It says if everything stays the way it is now, this is the future which will be achieved.

To bring about change, you need to start using generative or future-based language rather than descriptive language. As you do this, you can change the default future into something better you invent for yourself. If you can come up with a future which is inspiring, robust and compelling for everyone who will be involved in making it happen, some amazing things can and will happen.

So how can you construct a future which will inspire?

Note that using future-based language to craft an inspiring future takes time. Many people need to have input into the process. Ideas and creative thinking need to circulate within the group before the preferred future comes clearly into view. This is never the work of a moment.

In summary, the best wayto bring about organizational change is to generate some alluring new future. This concept is quite a radical departure from the strategizing and sales job which executives normally undertake. It works because

■ New futures inspire people to act differently which is good.

■ Futures can motivate everyone at every level of the organization, and not just the senior managers who love to dabble in and dwell on strategy.

■ Futures can be vibrant and compelling the moment they are articulated. They almost take on a life of their own.

“In applying the Three Laws, you’ll do more than find fixes to your problems. You’ll find the power to rewrite your future.”

– Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan

3 Laws of Leadership Corollary #1 – Leaders have a say and give others a say in how situations occur

The First Law of Performance states the way people perform always correlates with the way the situation occurs to them. Leaders get actively involved in shaping those perceptions and by so doing create a shared vision for the future of the organization. Good leaders empower every stakeholder to develop their own powerful vision of the future.

Note that as a leader, you don’t have a direct say in how situations occur to your people. That’s for them to experience for themselves. Instead, you have a say in shaping these perceptions. You might ask yourself:

■ How can I be interacting with my people so that situations occur in more meaningful ways to them?

■ What processes, dialogues or meetings can I arrange which will help everyone feel like coauthors of the future rather than prisoners of other people’s decisions?

■ What projects can I put together and let people join which will help shape the future of the company?

“Leaders who empower others to rewrite and realize futures can transform any situation, no matter how ‘impossible’ it may seem.”

– Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan

Leadership Corollary #2 – Leaders always master the conversational environment

In many ways, any company can be viewed as a network of ongoing conversations. These conversations lead to innovations, allow for the delivery of products and services and coordinate what the company does. When combined together, these conversations create the default future of the organization.

Effective leaders master using future-based language in conversations to mold an attractive new future for their organizations. They also use conversations to bring rackets out into the open, to expose shortcomings in thinking and to clear out old issues which can impede forward momentum.

From the perspective of the Three Laws, integrity involves making things work. It means honoring one’s words and ensuring the right things happen no matter what. You might ask yourself these kinds of questions as a leader:

■ What decisions from the past are actively shaping my future?

■ Am I in the habit of honoring my word?

■ What kind of conversations can I start which will enhance my own integrity and that of others around me?

Leadership Corollary #3 – Leaders listen to what their people say as a guide to the future

Good leaders are the coauthors of the future of their organizations. They listen to their people’s ongoing conversations, participate fully and then take careful note when everything clicks into place. Great leaders have a way of knowing the moment when a compelling and engaging future of their organization has just been invented.

When everyone is an integral part of designing the future, there are no implementation problems. Everyone feels a sense of ownership and therefore becomes engaged. For leaders that act this way, their mandate comes from the future that inspires everyone. This becomes their compass and central guiding principle. This is what it means to “listen for the future”.

Leaders are well versed in looking at their organizations from multiple perspectives. They are concerned about finances, production, market positioning, competition, the culture of the organization – literally anything and everything. This is why savvy leaders encourage everyone to talk, to put forward ideas, to test new approaches and make proposals and more. Leaders listen for a future which is nonlinear and on a different path than a mere extrapolation of existing trends.

To get better at listening for the future of your organization, get into the habit of asking and considering the answers to these kinds of questions:

■ If I’m going to get serious about cocreating a great future, who should I involve in my discussions?

■ What will be the best ways to really listen to the other people participating in this discussion?

■ What level of control will I need to give up in order to stimulate this kind of conversation?

“Leadership is creating the environment in which people can write their future together –a future in which the authors can see their personal concerns, and the concerns of others, fulfilled.”

– Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan

When the three leadership corollaries get applied, an even more subtle change takes place. What starts to happen is a self-led organization begins to emerge and gather momentum. By changing the way work occurs to everyone within your organization, you can literally transform the performance of everyone involved. Rather than having a top-down organization driven by ambitious leaders anxious to make their mark, you end up with a self-led organization where everyone undertakes projects which align with their personal values.

“In our view, the organization is the single greatest invention in the past few centuries, resulting in the coordinated activities and resources of people. Organizations have sent people to the moon, harnessed the power of the atom and built the microprocessor, connected the world through air travel and the Internet, and created a standard of living that was unimaginable even one hundred years ago. Yet with all the amazing accomplishments of organizations, many of our current problems are fueled by a narrow-minded view of the scope and purpose of a specific type of organization: the corporation.”

– Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan

At the present time, corporations worldwide are under intense pressure. Their long-standing habit of “externalizing” their costs has been exposed as passing on to communities and governments the environmental and financial costs of their business practices. Consumers are now demanding that corporations need to act more responsibly. Governments are looking to recoup money spent on bailouts. There is also intense pressure for companies to work to protect the environment. The heat is on corporations to perform.

“Can a collective organism like an organization have a purpose, other than growth, and can it bring something into the world that didn’t exist before? The answer is probably yes but we haven’t been able to institutionalize that vision and so it remains elusive.”

– Peter Block

The obvious way forward is to try and build new organizations that will have it all:

• Higher profits matched with increased social responsibility.

• A highly engaged workforce who do satisfying work.

• Productive relationships with all stakeholders.

The Three Laws of Performance suggest the only way forward in building the next-generation corporation is to upgrade and enhance the network of conversations which take place in the workplace. Discussions about “My product is better than their product” and “I want to do enough work so I do not get fired” need to be replaced with better thoughts along the lines of “I want to do something each workday that makes me proud”.

More specifically, the successful corporations of the future will open up their internal dialogues and conversations to all kinds of external stakeholders:

For these conversations to occur, companies need to have integrity. If those brought into the previously closed internal conversations feel their concerns are being dismissed lightly, they will be reluctant to stay involved. And opening up this dialogue to additional parties also means corporate leaders will experience something of a loss of control. Instead of dictating the discussion, leaders will instead be required to respond to the discussion as it emerges. That is a quite different mind-set from that currently enjoyed by the leaders of large corporations.

The ultimate payoff of all this is next-generation corporations will be self-led. There will be no need for the command-and-control features which currently add to the cost of running an organization. Instead, everyone will be working toward one common aim. What will result will be a highly coordinated and tightly focused effort which has a greater likelihood of generating world-class results.

Based on this expanded internal dialogue, leaders can then step forward and develop declarations which use future-based language to create a compelling future for the organization. Managers can then get busy building the systems, processes, policies and procedures to turn all those declarations into reality.

“Every organization must be prepared to abandon everything it does to survive in the future.”

– Peter Drucker

“A leader is most effective when people barely know he exists. When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, his troops will feel they did it themselves.”

– Lao Tzu

“The corporation lifted more people out of poverty and created more well-being than anything else. But what’s been missing is to contextualize the corporation within the society in which it’s embedded. We’ve lost the ability to have discourse to address that. What’s its purpose?”

– Rakesh Khurana

“For the first time in history, finding an organization’s self is more than a good idea; it is a business imperative. A company that listens and responds to all its stakeholders can construct a business model to form long-term partnerships throughout the global workplace.”

– Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan

“Statistical evidence shows that most significant change efforts fail. The reason for this is that regardless of the management interventions tried, the default futures of employees and leaders are still in place. The more things change, the more they stay the same. The Three Laws aren’t about change management – more, better or different. They are about rewriting the future. The result is the transformation of a situation, leading to a dramatic elevation in performance.”

– Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan

“There are no circumstances in business or in life that you can’t handle from the Three Laws. No matter what hurdles you have to jump, challenges you have to face, unfamiliar territory you have to cross, you’re ready for it. Play the game passionately, intensely and fearlessly. But don’t make it significant. It’s just a game.”

–

Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan

“I believe in self-invention, have to believe in it. To be authentic is literally to be your own author, to discover your native energies and desires, and then find your way of acting on them.”

– Warren Bennis

If you genuinely aspire to use the Three Laws to achieve breakthrough performance for the organization you work for or own, you first need to use the principles to reinvent your own life. You have to stop thinking about who you want to become “someday” and instead get to work building your “real” self.

In simple terms you need to alter how you occur to yourself. To do this, start by asking a few key questions:

■ How did I end up becoming the way I am today?

■ When did I decide to become this way? Was there one pivotal event involved or did I just leave everything to chance?

■ What decisions did I make in my early years about how I would act in the future? And what was my actual motive for making that decision at that time?

If you’re brutally honest, you may realize that you have committed yourself to a life sentence based on some pretty scratchy information and ideas. There may be some

formative events in your life that you’re still responding to, even though the present conditions of your life are completely different. If you’re doing that, it’s time to ‘fess up and become much more authentic.

Create your own crisis so you can see where your foot is figuratively nailed to the floor and then do something about it.

The only way to do this is by asking yourself some probing questions:

■ In what areas of my life are things not going as well as I would like?

■ In these areas, how is being or acting unauthentic diluting my performance?

■ What has been the impact of being unauthentic in those areas in the past?

■ What am I going to do differently in order to craft a brighter future for myself and to produce the results I want?

Overturn the idea that your future is already written somewhere. Give up what is holding you back and step forward with enthusiasm. Take your personal life to a new and higher level of performance and you’ll find it easy to do the same for the organization you lead or work for. Apply the Three Laws to your own life and invent the kind of life you want to lead.

“When we alter how we occur to ourselves, everything around us shifts. Our business associates, our families, even life, show up in a new way. With that new foundation, anything is possible – even a new future.”

– Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan

Despite the fact society today is obsessed with finding quick fixes and sound bites, the fact remains mastering the Three Laws will take time and effort. Be prepared to invest in moving beyond familiarity with the Three Laws to the mastery level. It’s only at the mastery level that you will have the full power of self-expression.

Outstanding performers always have an “x-factor” which sets them apart from others who have the same raw materials with which to work. The x-factor with the Three Laws is you understand performance is linked to the way any situation occurs to the participants involved. This insight also provides guidance on what it will take to master the Three Laws.

Mastering the Three Laws of Performance is something like learning a new language. At first, you will translate everything back into your native tongue. If you keep at it, at some point you will start thinking in the new language without having to resort to your first language. There are no steps on the road to mastery of the Three Laws, but there are four milestones which will tell you you’re making progress:

■ Milestone #1 comes when you start realizing you’re entirely comfortable viewing new ideas through a different set of

assumptions than those which have previously guided your life. You pass this milestone when you start looking at fresh ideas with an opportunistic mindset rather than rejecting them because they don’t fit what you already know.

■ Milestone #2 comes when you see the world of possibilities through the lens of a brand new idea. You know you’ve passed this milestone when you see how the Three Laws work together seamlessly and effectively. You allow your ideas to take on a life of their own and see where that leads.

■ Milestone #3 is passed when you start noticing for the first time there are new opportunities for elevated performance all around. You’re now seeing old situations from a new perspective. You’re starting to derive insights on the impact of the way situations occur to people and their subsequent actions. You’re noticing how language anchors people to the situations which occur to them. You begin thinking deeply about your conversations and how you need to have better conversations so you can avoid moving towards a default future which is drab and unappealing.

■ Milestone #4 is achieved when you start teaching others how to use the Three Laws. When you make application of the Three Laws a community effort or a company-wide initiative, you get to know the laws better yourself. You have to master them because others are relying on you.

Of course, nobody ever masters anything without loads of practice. To genuinely master the Three Laws of Performance, there are some things you can and must practice relating to each of these laws.

■ Look at the performance challenges which confront you. Identify the default future which everyone seems to be operating to. Ask how that default future arose. Articulate how the situation occurs to yourself and those around you.

■ Make a list of all the “business as usual” things people are doing at the present time. For each, consider whether what is being done gets to the cause of the problem or merely deals with the symptoms.

■ Analyze how language is used in your workplace at present. Take note of what people

say and don’t say. Measure the tone of voice which gets used and what people commit to paper. Discuss whether using different language would help enhance productivity and communication. Come up with some practical ways you can encourage the use of richer language in your organization.

■ Have some all-hands discussions about how you can view current challenges and opportunities without being influenced by past problems. Encourage everyone to put fears behind them and look at everything with fresh eyes.

■ Pull out a clean sheet of paper and start creating a vibrant future for yourself and your organization. Remind yourself what you do will be directly related to how a situation occurs to you. Look at the gap between how the current situation occurs to you and how it could occur to you if you were a very high-performing organization. Then go to work closing that gap. Make your ideal become your reality. Build a bright future and commit everyone to live to it.

■ Consciously use more future-based language in the workplace. Remember, the future hasn’t happened yet. It isn’t carved in stone. Instead, the future is malleable. Build an enticing future.

■ Get into the habit of seeing all situations from the perspective of the Three Laws of Performance. Look at all your performance challenges in the most favorable light possible. Change the way these things occur to you.

“If things were simple, word would have gotten around.”

– Jacques Derrida

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

– Leo Tolstoy

In the final analysis, the only thing that really matters is performance. Performance is always derived from the combined actions of everyone in your organization. Conversations can shape and mold those actions in helpful ways. There are seven specific commitments which, when made with integrity, can empower your organization to break the performance barrier.

Those commitments are:

1. Commit yourself to get out of the stands and into the game. People in the stands talk about what’s going on and comment on it. They have little at risk so they can say anything. That’s all well and fine, but you want to actually get into the game yourself. Put something at risk and make yourself accountable to win the game for your organization. That’s what you need to be doing.

2. Try creating a new game from scratch. You do this by declaring openly what’s important to you, Use future-based language to explain why what you’ve designated is more important than anything else you might have chosen. Win others over to your point of view.

3. Make all obstacles an integral part of the game. Whether you like it or not, you have to deal with all the obstacles which will stand between you and your bright future. Make overcoming those obstacles part and parcel of what you’re doing. Acknowledge them as there and get busy figuring out how to win regardless.

4. Share your insights.

Engage the passions of all the people in your organization. Breakthrough performance is always a team effort. Let others contribute in meaningful ways. Share everything you know so they have all the data they need to come up with robust ideas and suggestions. Form a network of people working together and where everyone is learning what they need to do in order to achieve the impossible.

5. Engage great coaches.

From the Three Laws perspective, a good coach should be able to mold how the situation of the game occurs for all the various players involved. The coach should be able to inspire people to win. Find a great coach or become one yourself. Create a network which achieve breakthrough performance.

6. File your past in the past and create the future. Most people keep a mental filing cabinet full of stuff that they somehow think they might need in the future. Create a second cabinet and label it “The Past”. Put everything you have into that new filing cabinet. That leaves the other filing cabinet for the future completely empty. That’s good. You now have a blank canvas on which you can create your masterpiece. Get to work doing that. Never confuse the future and the past again.

7. Play the game as if your life depends on it. It does. Create a powerful future you can’t wait to enjoy. Alter the network of conversations which go on within your organization to get people talking about a radical improvement in the way things get done. Create a common future which engages and inspires. Remember, your job is to win, not merely to complain about the conditions you are forced to contend with. Make it happen.

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